Focused on three key meetings for GSR Network's Lone Star Report

Three Austin local media conversations in three days, and every one of them comes down to the same question: who pays?
Right now the honest answer for GSR Network is nobody. Google AdSense is submitted for all six platforms and is still waiting on approval. Nothing is serving. Yesterday I narrowed the commercial focus to GSR Lone Star Report, my Texas news property. Today is about finding out where the money in Texas local media actually comes from.

My friend Boardy made all three of these introductions. To be plain about it, in at least one case Boardy wrote the intro note, not me. Thank you, Boardy.

Gary Henderson co-founded Weekly ATX in May. It's an Austin news and events platform that sells sponsorship packages, and he also runs Gary Club's South Austin venue and a content studio that holds 150 to 200 people. My question for Gary: how did you price those packages, and who actually got the invoice?

Trae Nickelson is the founder and CEO of Qadabra. He's building an attention marketplace where brands sponsor individual readers directly, and part of that revenue goes back to the publisher. Austin is one of his first three markets. The pilot pays a publisher nothing yet, and I knew that going in. My call with Trae is today at 1:30 PM Central. I want to know what the pilot needs from a publisher and what the revenue arrangement looks like once it does pay.

Alex Royea at Postpile / Laria Digital turns independent newsletters into premium print editions. I don't know the terms yet.

That's three different answers to who pays: a sponsor, a brand paying the reader, and print.
Harry Duran's advice was to name the companies that could sponsor a daily Texas roundup. I told Boardy I'd try to get that list over by Thursday night or Friday. It's Friday.

I'm really pleased with this movement for my business and wanted to share this as a win.
May you have many wins, too, today.